Stormy weather in the northwestern Caribbean Sea could develop into a tropical cyclone as it moves over the Gulf, the National Hurricane Center said in a forecast Thursday. The "weather disturbance" is dumping rain over the Yucatan peninsula and Belize. The firms are also monitoring Tropical Storm Erin.

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By ALISON SIDER

Marathon Oil and BP said they are evacuating some workers
from the Gulf of Mexico as a storm makes its way from the
Caribbean Sea toward the US Gulf waters.

Marathon is removing an unspecified number of non-essential
personnel in from its Ewing Bank platform about 130 miles south
of New Orleans, but production has not been affected,
spokeswoman Lee Warren said Thursday.

As a precaution, BP has started evacuating non-essential
personnel from its four deep-water production platforms in the
Gulf though they are continuing to pump oil and gas, according
to a statement posted on the company's website. Drilling rigs
it has hired have temporarily stopped working and are preparing
to get out of the storm's way if necessary, BP said.

Stormy weather in the northwestern Caribbean Sea could
develop into a tropical cyclone as it moves over the Gulf, the
National Hurricane Center said in a forecast Thursday. The
"weather disturbance" is dumping rain over the Yucatan
peninsula and Belize.

Marathon said it is also monitoring Tropical Storm Erin,
which is southwest of the Cape Verde Islands, far to the east
of the Gulf.

Other oil and natural gas producers in the US Gulf of
Mexico, including Chevron, ConocoPhillips and BHP
Billiton, said Wednesday they were monitoring the weather in
the Gulf.

Dow Jones Newswires

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